Passport Members check the Vault!

I believe we have over 60 videos in the vault now if you’re a Passport member. Right now, they are sorted by most-recent, but we’re coming up with another way to surf through these!

Passport freebie

Every now and then we take one of those videos from the vault and pop it out for everyone to see and enjoy! Here’s one about processing Lupins!

Kalebra Kelby Interview

I sat down for a long “Up Close and Personal” interview with my friend Kalebra Kelby. It was a great talk, and I hope you enjoy it. Their team just put together a few highlights here for you. The whole thing is over at KelbyOne along with two of my new classes. One is for Aurora HDR 2018 and the other is for Plotagraph.

Daily Photo – Dining Car in Paris

What kind of travel blogger am I in that I find this awesome restaurant in Paris that looks like an old train car and then I forget the name! Well, actually it was kind of touristy and silly, but still kind of awesome. It was right by our little crappy hotel there and I saw it almost every day when I would go out to take photos. I finally decided to take the team over there for a bite and a drink and took this photo while waiting for our mediocre food!

Today, for Passport Members (thanks for all of you that got these a new Christmas gifts for family members and friends!), we have a radically new video from Paris. I’ve never done anything like this… It’s an inspirational video about taking photos and why we do such a strange thing. You’ll see it’s professionally captured, edited, and more. We have about 20 of these in the hopper right now in fact, from different cities around the world. I’m excited to bring you the first one now.

Here are a few favorite photos from Paris to get you in the mood before the video!

And here’s the first video that talks about the word “Flaneur.” Note that we wanted to share these with Passport Members first before we spread around to the world. Our business team is currently putting together a series of sponsors to help fund these things. As you might suspect, videos of this quality are a bit more expensive to produce. So, for now, you can enjoy this version Sponsor-Free! 🙂 I look forward to your feedback! I’m always trying new stuff ’round these parts.

Exclusive content for Passport members

Collective Consciousness

I’m a big believer in the super-organism of humans coming together with tech and AI. Here’s an interview with Dan Brown about Collective Consciousness

Turning to the future, Brown said technological change and the development of artificial intelligence would transform the concept of the divine.

“We will start to find our spiritual experiences through our interconnections with each other,” he said, forecasting the emergence of “some form of global consciousness that we perceive and that becomes our divine”.

Daily Photo – The Bridge of Locks in Paris

This is Marin, the daughter of my friend Serge Ramelli with an umbrella, looking forlorn and sad during our photo walk in Paris. She's not, of course, she's just acting. But, if you were feeling forlorn and sad on a rainy day, this would definitely be the best place to be. You can come here and see all the locks that represent people's love, half of which has deteriorated into a bitter romance that would make for a great reality show. That's what she's thinking about here: a very low-quality reality show about one of those locks that did not turn out so well. Maybe a bit cynical, but, well, you know.

La Conciergerie

If you go to Paris, be sure this spot is on your list to visit. It doesn’t sound that interesting to visit an old prison like this, but it’s actually pretty cool. Here’s another picture of it:

Daily Photo – In the Prison

When I was at La Conciergerie in Paris, I stopped in a little side-room to take a photo. This was probably six years ago, but I didn't process the photo until just recently. It was a single RAW photo and I wanted to test out the new Aurora HDR. The RAW by itself looked pretty dull, and I didn't know if it had much potential, but I think it turned out pretty well!

I’m doing TEN (count ’em 10) free photo walks across Europe… also a few special day-long workshops. Wanna see the list of places? Come check out the new site at 80stays.treyratcliff.com!

See your city? Tell your friends! 🙂

These photo walks are family friendly events and all are welcome. Bring a friend or two! 🙂 Anything from a mobile phone to a DSLR will do swimmingly. I share lots of tips and tricks, do Q&A, and more… even better, we get to roam part of the city taking photos together. Come on out – I can’t wait to meet you! 🙂

Midnight in Paris

This was one of my favorite collaborations! I’m looking forward to doing more of these. If you want to get it, pop into the store and get the Midnight in Paris video!

Daily Photo – Down in the French Dungeon

Right outside of Paris, we rented a mansion for a few days to hold a great event! While there, we, of course, went down in the dungeon to get some photos… it's a fairly extreme HDR situation as you might imagine! We all really had a great time, and it was amazing to see what Miss Aniela created down here!

Midnight in Paris: Video Tutorial

Daily Photo – Nearly Midnight in Paris

Here’s one of my favorite images during our time at this amazing chateau near Paris. We had a fabulous weekend there and I was happy to meet so many new friends. I hope you enjoy the video series above!

Updated the Sony A7r Review

I’ve just added more photos and info to the Sony A7r Review here on the site – check it out! 🙂

Does anyone know the history here?

So, I do like the photo I posted today, but there is ONE thing that REALLY bothers me. When you see it, you can’t unsee it. Go ahead… take a moment to look.
…
Did you see it? You see how there is not real symmetry here? The triangle is right in the middle, but if you follow that hallway straight, then it is way off to the side. It’s not even close, really, even though everything else around the Louvre is symmetrical and perfectly placed. I can’t figure out why this one particular (and major north/south corridor) is so off-center, and I was wondering if there is a reason for it. It must have been some major problem in the construction that no one realized until later. And I’m sure it bothered everyone that was involved with the process… anyway, probably going down a rat hole here…

Daily Photo – Arriving at the Louvre in the Late Evening

No matter how you approach the Louvre it is impressive. The entire building is the Louvre — that pyramid bit is just the entrance. I remember when I was a kid and they built that pyramid bit and how controversial it was. Now I can't imagine this place without it! It would be even better if there was total symmetry with all the interdependent hallways (*ahem*!)

From the Midnight in Paris Tutorial

We did a great event last year in Paris. Most of you may already know about it, but here’s a video about it in case this is new to you! Today’s photo was taken from the event as well…

Daily Photo – The Chateau at the End of the Lane

You'd be amazed how inexpensive it is to rent a whole chateau for the day! There are SO MANY of them all over France, and a ton of them just sit there empty. It's so crazy-expensive to run them and maintain them that they just kind of sit there collecting dust. I was afraid that when we rented this place it would be like $10,000 for a few days or something, but it was all less than $1,000 I believe. What a deal! And, when we were inside on the first day, it was so strange… it was kind of like we had the whole place to ourselves and we didn't know what to do with all the space and all the power! It was kind of dizzying — but at least it was dizzying in a beautiful place.